A vigorous and well-informed group of about 100 people crowded the conference room of the New York Society for Ethical Culture last night to hear DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, councilmember Helen Rosenthal, Dana Lerner, and members of the NYPD discuss the topic, “Pedestrians vs. Cars: Manhattan’s Deadly Traffic Problem and What Can Be Done About It.”

“Pedestrian deaths are the perfect crime," Abramson noted. "Usually nothing happens, not even traffic tickets.” After recounting being struck and dragged by a delivery truck in 2007, Abramson deemed herself as "one of the lucky ones," because she only broke her femur, pelvis, and foot. "The driver who hit me did not stop," she said, pointing out how sadly common that is. "With each of these crashes I became more and more angry.”

The crowd at the meeting contained members of Families for Safe Streets, a group founded by family members who have lost loved ones in fatal traffic collisions. Dana Lerner is a member, and began her remarks while showing a photo of a grinning boy.

“This is Cooper,” she said. “This is my son. He would have no problem doing this, but I am nervous. He was very gregarious. He liked being the center of attention, stuff like that. I’m doing this for him, and it’s hard.”

After talking about her son’s death crossing West End Avenue at 97th Street while holding his father’s hand in a crosswalk (“They were doing everything right,” she said), Lerner spoke to the persistent lack of accountability that grieving families face.

“It’s basically okay to kill someone in your car,” she said. “It’s psychotic.” She explained how disappointed she had been with Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., who declined to attend last night’s event. “I believe that the District Attorney’s office is not taking this seriously,” Lerner said.

Commissioner Trottenberg began by noting with pride that traffic fatalities were the lowest they have been since New York started keeping track, down to 134 from 180 in 2013. She spoke with pride about success in Albany convincing lawmakers to lower the default speed limit to 25 miles an hour, and of the extremely effective traffic cameras her office has put in place, 49 out of 140 of which are already up.

The DOT is installing around nine cameras a month in what Trottenberg called a “careful rollout,” to avoid the fate of Nassau County, where voters rebelled against new cameras which are now being taken down. Trottenberg blamed Nassau County’s traffic camera debacle on a general failure to “follow the letter of the law."

New York's speed cameras can only be placed in school zones, but they've already issued 183,000 violations as of last September.

After Trottenberg fielded a question about pedestrian distraction on smart phones, Rosenthal added, “We are all doing this wrong.” She was interrupted by a member of the audience who stood up and said, “My anger just rises to the surface. I cannot listen to this. What we are talking about is people who were in the right.” The woman’s husband had been killed while with her in a crosswalk. They had the light.

"Anger isn’t always a bad thing. Anger can be a force for social change,” Abramson told the audience, noting that in 1929, 900 pedestrians were killed on New York City streets, prompting riots and demonstrations, and later, change. “NYC is the greatest walking city in the world and our streets should be safer.”

Batya Ungar-Sargon is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn.